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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Ablutophobia

I don't know why, but for about a week now the girl gets sobbingly hysterical at the thought of getting in the tubby, which is so strange considering previously she'd be content to stay in the water for an hour, and often after I drained the water she'd STILL stay in the tub playing with the drain and, occasionally, licking the tub floor (I don't makes it up, I just reports it!).

But suddenly, wah wah wah!

She didn't recently have a scary slip into the water incident or anything. Few nights ago all she was saying in her hysteria was "belly, belly sit!" It may have also been "bally sit", I don't know - but... huh??? And then tonight, as she was sitting in my lap grasping two towels for dear life, she was just saying "towel, towel," oh-so-pathetically (that and "no bathtime! No quick bath!"). Poor baby.

The biggest problem is she still doesn't understand the word 'why.' It's actually quite unusual for a child her age who is otherwise SO verbal to not chaaap 'why,' but she doesn't. This makes our life easier (so far none of the constant "why?" questions when we say or see anything), but makes it harder to diagnose these issues. So I ask her in the midst of hysteria, or later when we're calmer, WHY she doesn't want to take a bath...

"Ya.""Sarah Rochel, why don't you like the tubby?""Ya.""Does something hurt you?""Ya.""Is it too cold?""Ya.""Is there a hairy purple monster in there?""Ya."

Exactly.

Bubbles, no bubbles, lots of water, little water, hotter water, colder watter - nothing doing. She doesn't like it any better with company either. We're stumped. We're just going to sweat it out, give her as short baths as possible, teach her how to use a nail brush, and hope that, this too, will pass.

And speaking of passing things (ba da dum!), here's a picture of our patented method, Toilet Training with a Safety Net (note the aforementioned nail brush). She went with Abba to buy a potty last Friday, since she'd been asking to use ours (!) occasionally, but been chickening out at the pivotal moment, as it were. So they got the one she picked out, which appeals to her due to the button on top, which plays "It's a Small Word" when pressed. (Brings 'musical chairs' to a whole new meaning, eh?) She hasn't been interested in sitting on it yet without diaper AND clothes, but today she did pick it up and hug it and say, "MY potty!" Pride of ownership is the first key. Let's just hope she doesn't love it so much she doesn't want to get it dirty.

More pics:This was my coup of a dinner the other day. We had hot dogs (yum, nitrites!), and some corn, but I was worried my daughter wasn't going to get enough solid carbs. So I gave her some potato chips. And, whew, she made her daily minimum of sodium! We were so worried!

We're working on not using quite SO much water, but we love to wash dishes! Hmm... maybe I should take her clothes off first, and accidentally squirt her with the faucet from the other sink... Think she'd notice? But how to accidentally shampoo? The challenges of motherhood.

2 comments:

Sabba Lenny
said...

Maybe SR associates the bath with eventually being sent to bed? We know that she is not fond of going to bed. Perhaps you can experiment by creating a new association, like playing a special game right after the bath.